Spears from the Imperium Romanum

[Sean Manning]

I'm going to have to eat my words non of the modern books have details of spear shafts that I can see, though "Der Thorsberger Moorfund" katalogue, K Raddatz, contains fragments with measurements, which look like mostly ends for the spear heads, but no complete example and no wood identification even though other wood is sometimes identified.

Ivor, I want to make sure I understand. Are you telling me that the two giant volumes on spears and lances from Ilerup Aadal do not publish the spears, just the spear-heads and lance-points?

And that Klaus Raddatz' Der Thorsberger Moorfund Katalog, Offa-Bücher band 65 1987 does not publish the spears and lances just the heads or points?

And that Andreas Rau with titles like Nydam Mose 1-2: Die personengebundenen Gegenstände. Grabungen 1989-1999 does not publish the spears, just the spear-heads and spear-points? Because the wood is the interesting sophisticated bit, any apprentice can bang a piece of iron into a socketed spearhead! And the wood is the rare part, there are hundreds of thousands of surviving spearheads from the ancient world but having the whole spear is much more informative. So I would really expcet that if they have rare finds like spearshafts, archaeologists would rush to publish them as carefully and completely as possible and leave the boring things like silver and gold and iron for later.

I think I really lucked out with East Anglian Archaeology 118! Which was available and affordable from Oxbow Books when I bought it.